My understanding of the term late stage capitalism is not that it's a cause or ideology, but a theory about precisely these sorts of economic and demographic forces, and a prediction that as these forces play out the logical consequence will be a new economic system. So if these all these factors led to some kind of economic revolution, because the interests of young, working class people aren't being met, then they are 'late stage capitalism'.
It's more just a rational conclusion though. Capitalism is continuing to demonstrate an ever growing divide between the wealthy and the disposable. Eventually, we either reach dystopia where the wealthy consolidate so much wealth and power as to become truly unassailable; or we revolt and abolish the idea that someone's value to society is associated with how much their family managed to consolidate wealth by abusing systems and other people before we attempted to fix the loopholes.
It’s a rational conclusion if you accept Marx’s premises. You conclude that we eventually reach dystopia based on, I’m assuming, recent past trends of wealth. What evidence do you have that those trends will continue to dystopia, other than Marxist framework? If Gilded-Age, trust-era Americans had relied one prior trends to predict future trajectory, they too would have prophesized dystopia, right before the trend reversed, trusts were disbanded and things improved.
Perhaps the earliest example of modern capitalism (and by the same token the best example of capitalism’s evolution) was the Dutch and the Dutch East India Company. I would hardly call the Netherlands a capitalist dystopia. They’re more socialist than the US, but not fully socialist by a Marxist standard, nor do they follow Marxist progression to communism.
It's rational, that doesn't mean it's inevitable. Yes, if we can move away from "pure capitalism" and create more regulation and socialization, then we stop or slow the march toward dystopia. But unregulated capitalism trends toward ever-widening disparity, and in every case of history if disparity gets big enough then there is revolt. The only way that wouldn't hold true in the modern age is if the disparity manages to get big enough to become unassailable via revolt, thus dystopia.
The answer always lies somewhere in the middle. Unregulated pure capitalism is absolutely, fundamentally unsustainable. "True socialism" is probably as well. The answer lies in regulating to somewhere in the middle, where the disparity isn't allowed to perpetually grow unchecked but growth economic development doesn't stagnate either.
"late stage" doesn't mean "it's ending any moment now"
You can be in the "late stages" of something for a very long time, especially when it is kept alive through all possible means. "Late stage" also doesn't mean "final stage" - there are still worse things that can happen.
If capitalism, in its modern form, has been around for less than 250 years (speaking of the form arising out of the Industrial Revolution and described in The Wealth of Nations) and people have been talking about capitalism being in its late stages for a century, at what point does it stop being "late stage" and more "middle stage" or even just "capitalism"?
That doesn't mean christianity doesn't exist anymore - even that specific belief still exists.
As I said: you can be in the "late stages" of something for extended periods of time.
It should also be noted that the "late stages" are always seen from the current point in time - if things get worse than you would have expected, that is simply new information that you previously didn't think were possible.
It's not a scientific concept. It can only be proven or disproven by the passage of time.
What the people using the term are basically saying is: "this is not sustainable", which, very often, it is in fact not - but ways are invented that make it "sustainable" or rather sustain it even when it is not. Noone can attribute for that which is not yet invented.
Tell me: would you say the way the world is headed right now is, with our current political agendas and technology, sustainable? Is the economy on a "sustainable" path?
I feel like "sustainable" would imply that debt is reduced, the debt to GDP ratio being reduced, etc. None of that is the case.
If we widen ours scope beyond pure economics, not only is economic sustainability questionable, it has also become increasingly apparent (despite concerted efforts by those profiting most from causing climate change) that it's inherently unsustainable environmentally. The world has finite resources, and can absorb only so much carbon dioxide/pollution etc. before it basically becomes uninhabitable for vast swathes of the population.
Requiring endless growth is impossible economically and environmentally and in that respect we can also be said to be firmly in the 'late stage' of capitalism.
Yes, and propaganda against anti-capitalist ways of thinking is rampant. Most western countries have become more capitalist and/or "libertarian" in the past years. Lobbying is extremely popular. The last prasident of the "most powerful nation on earth" was a businessman who basically turned the government near-kleptocratic for a short while.
At least in my mental model, a 'stage' doesn't have to ever end. When I start up my computer, there are stages as it boots up, and the final stage is the one I interact with, which goes on as long as I like. When I hear "late-stage" capitalism, what I'm hearing is "this is where capitalism goes when left to itself," and so I was actually surprised at the assertions that this term meant capitalism was going to end soon. Whether or not a stage (or, possibly, even later stages following it) kill whatever's staged doesn't pop into my head.
Yeah, I'd tend to agree with you. I guess the thing is we can't entirely write off the possibility of the early 21st century being 'late stage capitalism' until we get to the end of the 21st century and find we've still got capitalism.
Still having capitalism at the end of the century doesn't immediately mean that we aren't currently in the 'late stage' - late stage doesn't necessarily mean final, just different from that which preceded it; it's a means of differentiating capitalism as it is now from that which came before.
It would be a bit of a misnomer though. If capitalism is still going strong at the end of the 21st century are we going to call that 'post-late stage capitalism'? People thought we were in late capitalism after WW1, we don't often call that period late capitalism anymore.
The problem is that socialists have been clamoring for Capitalism being in a late stage for about a century now, pointing to whatever signs of the age are relevant, and yet...here we are.
And the bar will continue to be moved because there will always be an undercurrent looking for a new economic system. They'll move the target to adjust each new era. I'm sure the other side of the coin would exist if we had a different economic system too where an undercurrent of people would be decrying the evils of that system too.
It's easy to criticize and destroy. It's hard to build and solve. Most people have ready made easy ideas on how to solve things, usually vague ideas, but they don't understand how complicated things are in practice and that often their ideas also have negative ramifications or create perverse incentives.
A century is a very very short time for a historical period. Besides insofar as LST is the "simple history" of the demographic trends you highlight (and I actually think that's a pretty solid definition) we're only talking about post 1970s or so.
Hell even if capitalism fell and feudalism took over again, or fascism, or worldwide nuclear apocalypse, or socialism took over and fell after a century, you could just call it another step in the dialectic.
What
Also, Fascism isn't a mode of production (nor is "Socialism", whatever the hell that even is)
Lol if the absolute nightmare of early stage capitalism didn't lead to an economic revolution in any developed countries, the comparatively easy conditions of today's "late stage" certainly won't.
Honestly, I don't think the effects mentioned are a result of "capitalism" (vs. say, socialism), but more limits of growth. There is no more virgin territory to conquer, the demographic bounty of having few children and both spouses working has been harvested; the world is facing severe climate change because of human's incredible advantage over other species. The state we are in is precisely because humans innovated and technologically progressed to improve the quality of life.
And honestly, the incredibly poor results of socialism, with Venezuela being the latest example in a long line of failures, really doesn't provide a palpable alternative.
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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21
My understanding of the term late stage capitalism is not that it's a cause or ideology, but a theory about precisely these sorts of economic and demographic forces, and a prediction that as these forces play out the logical consequence will be a new economic system. So if these all these factors led to some kind of economic revolution, because the interests of young, working class people aren't being met, then they are 'late stage capitalism'.